


As Thou Wilt

by grey_sw (grey)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Best Served Cold, Determination, Devotion, Fix-It Fic (sort of), Ignoct Week, Is A Recipeh, Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Revenge, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:18:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey/pseuds/grey_sw
Summary: Of all the words in the world, Ignis Scientia has always hatednoandyou can'tmore than anything.After the end of everything, he'll burn the world to sayNOright back.





	As Thou Wilt

**Author's Note:**

> for Ignoct Week, Day 2: "Burn the World for You".

Of all the words in the world, Ignis Scientia has always hated _no_ and _you can't_ more than anything.

When the 'Guards and his uncle and the King himself forbade them to go, he and Noct still snuck out of the Citadel, creeping through windows and over hedges. When they were inevitably caught and punished, they waited just long enough for a touch of forgetfulness and then stole outside again (and again). 

When Noct was injured -- when Noct lay motionless under his blankets, small and helpless, as his minders barred the door to his determined little Chamberlain -- Ignis used the same window trick to be with him, breaking the latch. After that, a secret passage, and after that, begging the maids to sneak him in under the clean linens. In later years he'd think of the Marilith and remember the soft scent of cedar and lavender, the reassuring weight of a whole cartful of sheets on his back.

After the fifth time they'd dragged him from Noct's side, scolding all the while, they finally let him be. 

Not long afterward he swore himself to the Crystal, in stubborn defiance of his tender age. It was for Noct, _for Noct_ , and for that Ignis could do anything. He _would_ do anything, anything necessary, anything at all.

It turned out that what he did was learn to cook, because the Prince found special pastries in Tenebrae. Ignis couldn't quite seem to get them right, but he never stopped trying.

Years later, Gladiolus smirked beneath his watch cap and told him he was too small and shy for fighting, so Ignis set aside an hour each evening for weight training. He burned through six different compound lifts, long days of limping soreness, and countless jugs of whole milk with strawberry-banana protein powder, and put on thirty pounds of muscle in his sixteenth year. And taught himself to swing his lance hard and fast enough to knock Gladio on his smug, beefy arse, even if only once in fifteen tries.

(That figure trended slowly upward during the years to follow -- more so after he learned how to tumble and flip, despite being "much too old" to start gymnastics.)

When Noct told him that he wished to move into his own apartment in the city, Ignis petitioned the Council. When that didn't work, he petitioned the King. And when that failed, he uncovered a failure of security at the Citadel and used that as the impetus to petition again, this time "for the Prince's personal protection". 

Regis' smile was knowing, yes, but supportive, and the latter was all that mattered.

Noct gave him much the same Lucis Caelum smile on his eighteenth birthday, secret and warm. Noct smiled at him, and reached out across the sofa to touch and to hold, and the barest brush of his fingertips ignited Ignis' heart. Ignis' own sense of propriety told him he couldn't touch back, but he threw it aside and did as Noct asked of him, fearlessly, all night long.

When news came of the treaty, of Noct's political marriage to the Lady Lunafreya, Ignis stood for a moment in shock and hurt, in heartbreak, frozen before the television in Noct's living room. Then he threw himself into motion, making phone calls, calling in favors. He said nothing to Noct, who only seemed sad and quiet and resigned to his fate. They'd both known it couldn't last forever. 

But not Ignis, not really. Ignis promised _always_.

A week later, Noct decided he wanted Prompto in his Crownsguard for his wedding trip to Altissia, and Ignis went round to each of the Glaives. He set up three demonstrations of Prompto's shooting skills, and failed to mention he'd honed them against aliens at the arcade; he saw to it that Prom was "accidentally" assigned to run the obstacle course when the Guard were finished training, but before they left the field. He called in yet more favors, quietly arranged a suite of raises and bonuses, and even set up a couple of hot dates, and by the end of two weeks he'd gotten the Citadel's finest fighters to sign off on the application, including Clarus and Cor. 

The wedding itself was the one thing he could not change -- Regis was adamant on it. He ordered the four of them to leave for Altissia before the treaty was signed, and even Ignis could not defy both his King and his Prince.

Later, Ignis would understand why. But by then it would not matter. By then, Ignis had decided to bring up the matter with the Lady herself. She and Noct had been friends for a long time; surely the holy Oracle would not insist on a marriage the hated Nifs had forced on her, and on her childhood friend. 

Yes. He'd have a subtle word with her, in Altissia, and things would be set right again.

\---

He never does. Altissia is _give me the power to save him_ , and Altissia is **NO**. It's one last glimpse of Noct, lost forever as his vision slowly sears away. Altissia is the feel of the rain on his burning face, and Regis' tearful, spectral voice saying **I'm sorry, my son. I'm sorry. This is his destiny. This is _your_ destiny. You may turn Ardyn aside, but there is no bargain. What is, is what must be.**

Altissia is also _fuck destiny, help me or sod off!_ , and Ignis doesn't care if that hurts the man who practically raised him. Regis was Ignis' family because of Noct, because _Noct_ loved him... and Ignis has already seen what he'll do to his own son. Ignis has already sworn to stop it. Noctis' life is worth more to him than the Dawn, worth more than the whole world -- Noct is the one thing he can not, will not sacrifice.

But Altissia is also joy and power and flow: Ignis sizzles as bright as his name, alight with power and rage. At last, _at last_ the world is running at the right speed! His knives tear into Ardyn like scythes; they reap MTs like wheat. He becomes peerless, incomparable, the pinnacle of all the skill and acumen he's built over a lifetime... but Ardyn still stands before him, unshaken, and time is running out. 

There's more of everything than Ignis can possibly hold, right up until the instant the Ring's power fades, yet there's not enough of anything to matter. Not enough to count.

Not enough to save Noct.

Ignis lies rejected, broken, his perfect record smashed to pieces, and it hurts more deeply than he'd ever dreamed. 

\---

Prompto tries to hold him back, but he will not be swayed. He must see Noct. The agony that lingers on the left side of his face is not enough to stop hi, and near-total blindness is not enough. The visions hurt worse than either one, after all. Noct, dying. Noct, dead. The sight of his beloved, bleeding body replays over and over behind Ignis' dark glasses, and he sees it in his sleep: he knows already that he will never have another good dream. Never. But this, too, is too little to turn him aside.

He must be strong, because it will hurt Noct to see him otherwise. Noctis needs his advisor, and so Ignis shuffles into his room, moving with care, and finds the ottoman with the toe of his boot. He sits down facing away from the bed, unwilling to wound Noct with the sight of his face -- _wound_ is both a verb and a noun, now, and neither is acceptable. Both must be tamped down, hidden away. Both must be controlled and managed, made harmless by an applied act of will. 

And yet Ignis must say what he's come to say, though he knows that this, too, will wound Noct. 

It matters not. The shock and disappointment in Noct's voice don't matter, though they cut him to the bone, flaying the ventricles of his heart. No, his heart must be open. It _should_ be laid open, because it's not his duty to give the King platitudes and comforting lies, nor to tell him what he wants to hear. Ignis' duty is the truth as he sees it. Ignis' duty is the best strategy he can come up with, the next move Noct ought to make, and Ignis can not, _will not_ tell him to lie down and die for a pack of heartless, worthless Gods. 

_Perhaps it might be best if we brought our journey to a close._

The choice is Noct's, of course. It always was. Ignis knows before he speaks that his words will be futile. They can only serve to make him a coward in his dearest friend's eyes. They can only serve as further evidence of his brokenness, his failure, his inability to be useful. To be of use.

But they are true, his heart's true hope, so Ignis speaks them.

\---

Recovery is more difficult than anything he's ever done, and it's also more of the same. Just another task to see through to the end, another long slog through pain for his Prince. It's Prompto setting up tin can targets in an alley in Lestallum, and it's six months of throwing daggers right past them, missing nine times out of ten. 

It's the grin he grins beneath his glasses, when he finally uses them to smash one of Regis' stupid Glaives.

It's six months after _that_ before he deems himself ready to go: to walk down dusty roads in the dark, to ride beside Talcott to a hundred filthy, broken-down tombs. They don't find much. A tidbit or two about Ardyn, of course. His true identity, brother of the first King. It's not helpful. It won't save Noct. They find stone tablets hidden beneath the Tomb of the Tall, about the Lucii, about the truth of the Prophecy and the King of Light... but these are not useful, either, because Ignis already knows.

Ignis goes to Galdin Quay, to fish amid the silence, to be close to Noct. He goes to Lestallum to help with the government (such as it is, the poor thing!) He lives for a time, a short time, with Gladio, and he lives for a longer time with Prompto.

Prom's not Noct, not the one Ignis loves more than anything. But he's good, and kind, and funny. He treats Ignis' blindness like it's something, but not a _bad_ thing, and Ignis is happy to be with him. 

For a while.

During the eighth year, he and Talcott find a tomb, a tomb no one knows about. Ignis isn't sure which King is buried there, or if it even _is_ a King. What's left of the architecture of this tomb is different, all white stone (says Talcott) covered in tiny, inlaid letters, small enough for the sighted to overlook (says Ignis). 

Those letters are the only thing that ever mention what comes after the sacrifice.

> The Gods shall sleep, each in their beds: each gaining strength, alive but dead.  
>  The Fulgarian in bolt-struck wood, Archaean in disc of stone.  
>  The Glacian struck down by death, alone in Northlands chill and cold.  
>  The Hydraean beneath her tides, below the place where ruins ride.  
>  The Draconian on the Holy Isle, upon a throne of Crystal while--  
>  All that waited for Dawn now watch for the Dusk  
>  All that long for the touch of the Gods on this husk.

Ignis tells Talcott to stretch a roll of paper over the letters, and with a pencil he takes a rubbing, marks it deep so his fingers can find it later. Hopefully. If not, Prompto can read it, though Ignis has already committed it to memory. Those last few lines, that bit about Bahamut and the Crystal -- it's not hope, not quite, but it might be the barest whisper of something else.

Vengeance.

\---

It's one day after the funeral; two days after Ignis sewed shut Noct's fatal wound, Noct's ruined raiment. One last bit of mending for his Prince, laid down with trembling, blood-soaked hands. 

Ignis knocks on the door of the office Gladio's taken over, and then enters. He hears Gladio turn beside his desk, hears him check in surprise. Hears him hesitate, and then take in breath to speak regardless. "You look like shit, Iggy."

The corner of Ignis' mouth quirks up. "I'm quite sure I do."

Gladio gives a soft huff at that, as if he'd known Ignis' response before he gave it. Quite possibly he had -- they've been together a long time. The same unspoken respect has him moving on, accepting Ignis' answer. There's a soft sound instead, a _paf_ as he eases himself up onto the corner of the desk with the careful grace of the very large. "What's up?" he asks, as if it's a reasonable question. 

As if there is anything at all left for Ignis.

"Gladio. Which do you think might triumph in a fight: the Draconian, or two tons of TNT?"

Gladio pauses. Ignis can hear him scratching at his beard. "I'd take that as a rhetorical question from anyone else," he says. "But I'm... guessing it ain't when it's coming from you, is it?"

"Just answer the question."

"The Astrals are the strongest things on Eos... or so they say. They're the Gods, yeah? But after what we've seen, I think we could take 'em. Noct broke Titan's arm, y'know? And the Nifs killed Shiva."

"She came back."

"So she did." He doesn't sound convinced. "But Ifrit didn't. And the Crystal's gone, now, too. And..."

And the line of Kings. 

They finish that sentence without speaking a word, together in silence.

"Funny you mention it," Gladio says at last. "We're doing demolition in the old quarter, by the docks. Where the fish market was. Gonna blow the whole block clean and start over." He swings his feet, shifting the air around Ignis' trousers. "Cor wants to put a monument."

"To the Dawn, I suppose." Ignis is unashamed of the sour look he knows he must be wearing.

"To the King," Gladio says. His voice is forceful, strong. He still has something to live for, and Ignis can but wonder why. 

Family, perhaps.

"To the King," Ignis agrees, and raises his fist to his heart. Noct is the only family Ignis ever knew, the only thing he wants. The only thing he's ever sworn to.

"See you around, Iggy," Gladio says, but he sounds like he knows he won't. Ignis respects him for that. 

For his honesty.

"We'll meet again," Ignis tells him, and this, too, is honest and true.

\---

It's the work of a moment to gather ten Glaives, to set them to work stacking explosives by the side of the dock. No one dares question the Sword-Sworn, the King of Light's blind prophet. It takes longer to hitch a ride down to what's left of Galdin Quay; he ends up calling Talcott. The boy drops everything to help him, the way he did so many years ago. They chat about tombs and battles along the way, remembering.

Ignis doesn't particularly care, because none of it mattered, not in the end. But he indulges the boy just the same, because it's the last time.

The royal vessel is still there, as Ignis knew it would be. It's a short jaunt up to Insomnia, with Talcott at the helm, and a wait of a few hours as the Glaives do the careful work of packing the underdeck with crates. Ignis paces on the shoreline the whole while. 

It turns out two tons (of anything, much less volatile explosives) won't fit on a luxury yacht. But it also turns out that TNT is rather old-fashioned; what the Glaives have is liquid, and stronger, and far more unstable. Ignis still stands on the shore and glares sightlessly out into the bay, as if the water itself has slighted him, until one of the Glaives finds him a barge to stack more crates onto, to drag behind Regis' pleasure boat.

By evening they're back in Galdin, and Talcott's gone nervous and quiet. Ignis can hear him tapping at the screen of his phone. Texting Prompto, most likely. But as fast as Prompto is -- the fastest man on Eos, crouched over that noisy street bike Cindy made him -- he won't get here fast enough to do anything but cry. 

There's a reason Ignis didn't say goodbye. He won't change his mind, not here, not now. And Prom was close enough to family to make him do it, perhaps, close enough to beloved.

Close enough to Noct.

"Angelgard is across the way?" Ignis asks. 

"Y-yeah. You, uh, won't have to turn the tiller, sir. Just... go straight on."

There's naught to do but trust in Talcott's word. Fortunately it's not the first time he's done so, though it will be the last. Ignis nods and feels for the ladder. It's at an odd angle, since the boat is lined up for an island that never once saw a cruise. But he finds it, and pulls himself outward and upward, and starts to make his way to the bow.

"Goodbye, Ignis," Talcott says behind him. His voice is thick, is hesitant.

"Thanks for everything," Ignis replies, and slowly opens the throttle.

It's anticlimactic, if anything. The boat takes forever to pick up speed, forever to pull the barge away from the dock. It starts out so slow it's embarrassing, like somebody ought to be blowing a long note on a tuba. Ignis almost laughs. There's plenty of time to smell the salt air, to savor the wind blowing in his hair, to think, to hope.

The latter feels strange to him, like flexing a muscle he hasn't used in a while. Like stretching the tight hamstrings he'd had as a young teen, desk-bound in the Council chambers. He's almost forgotten how it goes. How good it feels. 

But hope for him has always gone _Noct_ , and that he'll never, ever forget.

He slams the throttle all the way open. The roar of the engine grows and grows, becomes thunder, becomes the booming voices of the Kings. He rides every bit of it in triumph, like a fiery spelldagger hurled at the heart of a God.

_Die,_ he thinks. _Die, Bahamut, die on your filthy throne. I'll kill you the same way you murdered Noct. Shatter, Crystal! Shatter as you shattered my King, and trouble Eos no more._

He never knows whether it does. There's only a single instant of overwhelming pressure, of his eardrums popping before the rest of him does... and then there's only victory, for he's done as he wished to the last.

(Perhaps there's a throne room waiting for him, and a King he loved? But perhaps there isn't. Perhaps there's nothing. Perhaps there's punishment.)

(So be it, whatever comes. Ignis knew the odds from the start.)

(He was born to change them.)

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, Iggy. you're the best.
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> p.s. fuuuuuuck destiny 凸(⌐■_■)凸


End file.
